Cardona v. Shinseki

The clinic represented Carmen Cardona, a disabled Navy veteran who served her country honorably for eighteen years, in her successful application for spousal benefits. Ms. Cardona married another woman under the laws of the State of Connecticut. The VA denied Ms. Cardona’s application for dependency benefits because she married a woman, and the clinic represented her on appeal first to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals and then to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). When the Secretary of Veterans Affairs announced he would enforce but not defend the constitutionality of 38 U.S.C. § 101(31) (defining “spouse” as “a person of the opposite sex who is a wife or husband”), the U.S. House of Representatives, acting through the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, intervened. Students appeared and argued twice before the CAVC, which eventually dismissed the appeal as moot after the Secretary of Veterans Affairs advised the Court that he would neither defend nor enforce § 101(31), Cardona v. Shinseki, 26 Vet. App. 472 (2014), and Ms. Cardona received full payment of her spousal benefits, retroactive to her date of application.